war and noise... the momentum and the medium... film, games, and more

Mona Lisa Overkill

Like knights of old, our group of adventurers went to take purveyance of the critically berated DaVinci Code movie last night. In all honesty, it wasn't bad at all, and I was shocked at how much the critics hated it, with the notable exception of Roger Ebert, my preferred reviewer. It seemed to suffer from Memoirs of a Geisha syndrome, where people demanded it to live up to the legendary status of the original book without remembering that the original books were, in fact, alot more entertainment than literature. One critic's sole reason for giving his thumbs down was that the DaVinci Code didn't live up to any greatness. Since when is a fictional narrative based on hack documents and flimsy conspiracy theories expected to be Oscar-worthy?

Like a horror movie, this was a flick that required active suspension of disbelief to create mutual enthrallment. Like most horror films, it had terrible cinematography in dark or darker sets, and wooden acting. And like most horror films, it had a premise that was more clever than original, relying on twisting turns to keep you in suspense. But today it's hip to be too smart for this kinda thing, regardless of what the movie was actually like.

Since most critics deemed it talky and boring, this would imply that the extensive "evidences" in the book to support Dan Brown's vast conspiracy theory could have been better explained with sign language and musical interludes… maybe a touch of blackface heel-clicking as well, or would that be razed for being too "manipulative" for a THRILLER? It's a historical thriller for legions of mal-educated teenagers and their parents who haven't touched AP Euro texts in thirty years. I felt it wasn't talky enough, and that's having read the book.

Finally, and most curiously, it seemed that while the majority of audience members loved the film, clapping respectably after the film, the crux of the conflict was lost on a few heathen stragglers. If you didn't get what the big deal was about, it's basically this:

1. Church offers salvation by way of belief in Christ's divinity.2. Pagans offer "salvation" by way of belief in innate divinity of the feminine.3. #1 and #2 don't go well together, especially when #1 has spent a heck of a lot of moola.

For some, the idiocy of this movie will not be something to your liking, but for the rest, the conversation it generates afterwards is worth the $8.